http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/105768F0-FE25-4F87-AC6B-B737E6DC1DE2..htm
Gaza power plant shuts down
( The Rafah border was briefly opened for patients[GALLO/GETTY] )
A power plant in Gaza City has shut down, affecting 500,000 local inhabitants
and forcing local hospitals to run on reserve fuel.
Large parts of the Gaza Strip, particularly Gaza City, were in darkness after
the main power station shut down its generators on Saturday.
The Hamas government's energy department said that about 55 per cent of Gaza
City and 35 per cent of the territory's other areas had power outages as a
result of the shutdown.
With hospital generators running out of fuel, it is feared that medical
equipment that will stop functioning soon.
An estimated 60 per cent of Gaza's power supply comes from its own power
station and the rest from Israel.
In the past, Israel has resumed fuel supplies just hours before Gaza's stocks
ran out.
As the siege of Gaza continued, Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from
the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, said that the main border point between
the Gaza Strip and Egypt had been reopened to allow Palestinians in need of
medical treatment to pass through.
"This is part of an agreement that has been reached between Egypt and Hamas,"
he said.
"To keep the atmosphere of a possible ceasefire agreement alive, the Egyptians
have told the Hamas authority they will allow for the next four days this
restricted movement of people to go through and to come back but ... the
situation in Gaza remains dire and it is not open to the general public."
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